All or Nothing
by dangerousandbeautiful
Summary: It's Lily Evans' sixth year at Hogwarts, and everything around her is falling apart. Severus is acting stranger than usual, her fellow dorm mates have kicked her out of their clique, a wizarding war is quickly approaching, and James Potter is...not being a total jerk? Lily learns to understand more about the people in her life, and in turn, more about herself.


_"_ _The loneliest moment is someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly."_

\- _The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald_

Prologue

He was not like any of the characters she had ever read about. This much had always been true, as unnervingly unpredictable as he was, and as frustratingly certain she needed to feel about every aspect of her life.

She was an all-or-nothing type of person—black and white made sense, to pick one or the other was the only way to live with order—she hated gray; it was the ugliest color on the spectrum. And he was _all_ gray. He set nothing in stone and hated committing to even the smallest of plans that did not involve his best mates. But the thing about gray was that you could not achieve the color without black and white—it did not exist on its own. Black, the darkest color, and white, the absence of color, when mixed, made everything murky, confusing, uncertain. These words had become a mantra for her at a young age, descriptions she'd wished to avoid. Murky, confusing, uncertain… _Murky, Confusing, Uncertain._

But such was the story of two people that was all three.

* * *

October 31st, 1981

They say in the moments before your death, your entire life is supposed to flash before your eyes. But in the case of Lily Evans Potter, whose death was surely imminent and mere minutes away, this was not true, at least, not at first.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run!" James Potter yelled at her after sprinting into the hall and glimpsing the tyrant whom had finally—after months of hiding—found them. James' snitch patterned socks gave him little grip on the hard-wood floor, and he slid upon turning back to see that his wife listened to him. "I'll hold him off!"

Lily did not hesitate, and ran the only way she could—up the staircase, one arm around her beloved son, the other gripping the bannister. _No,_ she pled to whatever God was listening, _please no!_ She did not even have her wand, having left it in the kitchen when she'd taken Harry from his father's arms just seconds before. She ran into Harry's bedroom, the first room to the left, and just as she was closing the door, blinding green light illuminated the cracks between the door and wall, and Lily jumped away from it as if burned.

 _In all the books in every library she'd visited, muggle or magical, James Potter never quite fit the description of any character she'd ever read. And she had read such an abundant amount of books._

High, shrill laughter echoed within the house, and Lily heard a loud _thump,_ a disastrous sound full of finality and hopelessness, and she realized her husband was dead. Or perhaps the sound was that of her own heart, beating its last, deafening and determined to be heard.

Someone was screaming, she realized as she tried to breathe again. Her breath would not come back, however, as she noticed the terrorized shrieks were coming from herself. _James,_ she thought desperately.

 _He had told her once, a long time ago, that he would never beg for anything, that being Gryffindor wasn't just about being brave, it was also about having pride, and never backing down even if losing was inevitable. Severus had called James foolish for it. Lily had agreed with him then. But deep down, beneath the place where denial and dishonestly lay, Lily had felt a pang of admiration for the dark-haired, sixteen year old enemy of her best friend._

Not for the first time, Lily regretted their lack of a contingency plan. In their most important time of need, they had put their faith in a childhood friend, and that had been the end of the discussion, no question or doubt left even as an afterthought. But Lily had no room in her heart for hating Wormtail right now. Holding her son in one arm, she threw everything she could find between herself and the bedroom door—the wooden rocker, the empty box of Harry's mini broomstick, courtesy of his godfather, the large fan that sat on the floor. She glanced out the window. _Maybe she could jump with Harry, she'd always been able to land softly from great heights without a wand._

But her decision was interrupted as the door opened an inch, stopped by her makeshift barrier, but Lord Voldemort easily cast the furniture aside and stepped into the room. He was easily a foot and a half taller than her, as tall as Dumbledore. His presence brought the chill of fear, ice crawling up Lily's spine as she looked into the pale, snakelike face of the evil man who'd labeled himself The Dark Lord.

Her almond-shaped green eyes met his vertical red slits, his features even more frightening than the last time he had confronted her. Without moving her gaze from his, Lily set Harry into his crib, and threw herself in front of him in an attempt to hide him from Voldemort's view.

James was dead. He was not going to come running up the stairs to help her save their son. Their life together flashed before her—the first time she'd seen the messy haired, spoiled boy on the train, the first time she'd ridden a broomstick with him, walking toward him on their wedding day…

There were so many firsts, but this would be their last. Their four years together thus far seemed so short; they had deserved a lifetime. She wished she had done everything possible with him.

She imagined her husband was lying on the floor downstairs now, his body several feet away, but his soul too far from her reach. She wanted to claw and scream at his murderer as he walked closer to her. How dare he come here with the intent to ruin their lives. There was no hope, nothing to stop him killing the both of them. She felt Harry's little hand grab her finger that was against the bars of his crib. He'd just had his first piece of candy earlier that morning…

It would be so _easy_ to die, to join her husband in another world where there was no Voldemort, no wizarding war, and no more living in fear as they had done for the last seventeen months. But her son, _their_ Harry—his life, short and unfairly about to end, flashed before her, and she suddenly wondered if James, proud and unashamed, would have done what she was about to do.

She begged, her eyes squeezed shut with little faith, though she _had to try_. "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside now." He said this calmly, though he'd laughed merrily when he'd murdered her husband moments ago. He expected her to back down and let him kill her son, too? Did he expect her to walk away from this unharmed, and start her life over elsewhere? If it had to end like this, with her husband and son dead, she'd rather be dead, too— _All or nothing._

 _"_ _Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"_

 _"_ _This is my last warning—"_

 _No._ James had once told her that she was a _Lily_ , not a Daisy, and she hadn't known what that was supposed to mean at the time. But now, as she stood between her baby boy and the most powerful dark wizard ever known, she decided that whatever it was he had tried to convey that day, he'd been right.

"Not Harry! Please…have mercy…have mercy…Not Harry! Not Harry! Please—I'll do anything—"

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

Voldemort tried to see past Lily, to move his wand above her shoulder and obtain a clear aim of the child prophesied to defeat him, but the woman would not allow it. With every inch he moved, she followed, leaning backwards until she was almost in the crib herself. He pulled back from her, annoyed.

Her face held the natural fear he'd become accustomed to when facing opponents, but like the other three times he had seen this particular woman face-to-face, her gaze held a steel resolve and this time he thought he detected a fury there so immense and forceful, it was almost impressive.

 _To hell with all of them, then._

 _"_ _Avada Kedavra!"_

Lily Evans Potter dropped upon the green light's striking of her chest, the strings of her existence severed just as her husband's had been, as the magic of life left her forever.

But not all her magic upon Earth had been dispelled, for with her sacrifice, one small piece remained. Untouchable and destructive to any who dared lay a harmful hand on her son, the ancient magic remained within Harry Potter until he greeted Death like an old friend.

 _To be continued..._


End file.
